Irrealis realization

At a glance

Device	Contribution to irrealis interpretation
Modal preterite	Remoteness
Modal auxiliary	Possibility, necessity, prediction, permission, etc.
Lexical semantics (suggest, insist, wish, hope)	Desire, obligation, recommendation, etc.
Perfect	Past orientation; often associated with past counterfactuals
Aspect	Ongoing vs non-ongoing situation
be / been	State, location, passive, progressive constructions

Note

Counterfactuality comes primarily from remoteness plus context; the perfect mainly places the imagined situation in the past.

Modal preterite

knew, were, rained in remote uses

Contributes: remoteness

If I knew the answer…

If she were here…

If it rained tomorrow…

Modal auxiliary

may, might, must, should, would, could

Contributes: modal meaning

She may arrive. (possibility)

You must leave. (necessity)

They should be home. (expectation)

I would help. (conditionality/remoteness)

Lexical semantics

suggest, insist, demand, wish, hope, fear)

Contributes: mood-like meaning through the verb’s semantics

I insist that she leave.

I suggest that he apply. I wish she were here. I hope she arrives.

Perfect

had, have, would have

Contributes: past orientation. Frequently associated with past counterfactuals

If I had known, I would have gone.

She would have arrived earlier.

Aspect

be working, have been working

Contributes: internal temporal structure

She was working. (ongoing activity)

She would have been working. (ongoing counterfactual activity)

Be / been

Contributes: the type of situation being imagined Commonly expresses:

She would have been happy. (state)

She would have been there. (Location)

She would have been working. (progressive)

It would have been completed. (passive)

What reflects irrealis in English?

• Clause construction (syntactic pattern)

• Verb form (plain form, preterite, etc.)

• Modal meaning (possibility, obligation, wish, etc.)

Traditional irrealis category	English realization
Subjunctive	genuine mood/construction
Imperative	genuine clause type/construction
Conditional	genuine construction
Hortative/Jussive	semi-fixed constructions (let’s, let him)
Everything else	mostly modal semantics expressed through auxiliaries, lexical verbs, or adverbs

Semantic summary by modal verb

• May: possibility / permission / wishes

• Might: remote possibility

• Must: necessity / inference

• Should: recommendation / expectation

• Would: conditionality / remoteness

• Could: circumstantial possibility

Why English use specific tools to each mood

Family	Why English Uses These Constructions
Commands (Imperative, Prohibitive, Jussive, Hortative, Preactive)	They are all attempts to influence behavior, so English uses directive constructions (close the door, let him speak, please send…).
Requirements & Recommendations (Subjunctive, Permissive, Prescriptive)	They regulate what ought to happen, so English uses deontic devices (be present, may leave, should apply).
Possibility & Knowledge (Potential, Dubitative, Presumptive)	They concern certainty and evidence, so English relies on modal auxiliaries (may, might, must).
Desire & Wishes (Optative, Desiderative, Volitive, Benedictive, Apprehensive)	They express attitudes toward events, so English uses verbs of wishing/fearing or the formulaic may.
Alternative Worlds (Conditional, Hypothetical, Eventive, Concessive)	They describe events in relation to assumptions or conditions, so English uses subordinate clauses (if, suppose, even if).
Information Seeking (Interrogative)	It is not about the event itself but about obtaining information regarding it.

Remoteness

The event is held at some distance from reality.

Important

Modal remoteness and conditionality are not the same thing.

Modal remoteness means: The speaker presents a situation as distant from reality.

That distance can be:

• Hypothetical

• Counterfactual

• Tentative

• Less direct

• Socially softened

There is a distance from the here and now.

If I were rich, I would travel. (the traveling is not presented as real, with condition)

I would help, but I’m busy. (the helping is presented as a hypothetical possibility, not an actual event.)

Would you open the window? (the request is softened by distancing it from immediate reality.)

Would you mind helping me? (politeness)

I would never do that. (hypothetically)

I would think so. (tentative)

I would love to visit Japan (wish like expression)

I would have gone. (counter factual, in opposition to the facts)

In all of these, would creates distance from the here-and-now.

Modals counterparts

Non-remote	Remote
will	would
can	could
may	might

She will arrive tomorrow (more immediate)

She would arrive tomorrow if she could. (remote)

Can you help? (less remote.)

Could you help? (remote)

The same pattern appears across the modal system.

Conditional, counterfactual and polite distancing are subtypes of remoteness.

Hypothetical vs. counter factual

A hypothetical situation is: not presented as fact, but it is still open whether it is true, possible, or could become true.

Counterfactual describes an alternate world. It can’t happen.

If it rained tomorrow, we’d stay home. (hypothetical, can happen)

If it had rained yesterday, we’d have stayed home. (counterfactual)

The first is about the future. Tomorrow hasn’t happened yet, so the speaker cannot know whether the condition is false.

The second is about a completed past situation. The speaker presents an alternative history.

I would help if you asked. (hypothetical, nothing says you won’t ask, nothing says I won’t help, the scenario remains open.)

I would have helped if you had asked.(counterfactual: you didn’t ask, I didn’t help)

Distinguishing counterfactual

With a condition

The strongest predictor of counterfactual is the condition. If the condition already happened, and we are talking about alternate condition -

Sentence	Verb Form in Protasis	Time Referred To	Type
If I had known, I’d have gone.	past perfect	past	counterfactual
If I knew, I’d tell you.	modal preterite	present	counterfactual
If she were here, we’d start.	modal preterite	present	counterfactual
If it rained tomorrow, we’d stay home.	modal preterite	future	hypothetical

The two middle examples are counterfactual without a perfect - a preterite form can express modal remoteness rather than past time.

No condition

If there is no condition, the next predictor is the time of the consequence. If the consequence is in the past, this is an alternate reality. So we fallback to perfect as counter fact signaler:

Sentence	Likely Interpretation
I would help.	hypothetical / remote
I would never do that.	hypothetical / dispositional
I would go.	hypothetical
I would have helped.	usually counterfactual
I would have gone.	usually counterfactual

I would buy it (hypothetical, Under suitable circumstances, buying it is something I could imagine doing)

I would have bought it (counterfactual, I didn’t buy it, but in an alternative past I did.)

“Have” in the counterfactual construction is the “perfect auxiliary”. The perfect places the situation before a reference time:

I would go (not perfect, can happen)

I would have gone (perfect, the going is earlier than the reference point)

If she called, I would help. (remote, present/future)

If she had called, I would have helped (remote, past, both clauses are perfect. This is the most symmetrical and most common pattern.)

The perfect in the main clause controls the time of the consequence:

Main clause	Consequence Time
would go	present/future
would be going	ongoing
would have gone	past
would have been going	past ongoing

So when there is no if-clause, the perfect in the main clause becomes one of the strongest signals that the speaker is talking about an unrealized past alternative, which is exactly the environment where counterfactual interpretations arise most naturally.

Preterite

Usage of modal preterite

Use	Example	Time Reference
Remote conditional	If I knew the answer, I’d tell you.	Present
Remote conditional	If it rained tomorrow, we’d stay home.	Future
Remote conditional (stative, often counterfactual)	If she were here, we’d start.	Present
Wish construction	I wish I knew the answer.	Present
Would rather	I’d rather she stayed home.	Present/Future
It’s time	It’s time we left.	Present, with future-oriented implication
As if / as though	He talks as if he knew everything.	Present

Aspect

In the context of hypotheticals and counterfactuals, you use been whenever the situation you are imagining is:

• State

I would have been happy (the imagined situation is a state)

• Location

If she had been here, we’d have started. (the imagined situation is being somewhere)

I would have been there yesterday.

• Progressive/passive situation

If she had called, I would have been working. (The imagined activity is ongoing)

Hypothetical	Counterfactual
I would go.	I would have gone.
I would help.	I would have helped.
I would be happy.	I would have been happy.
I would be there.	I would have been there.
I would be working.	I would have been working.

When to use?

In the imagined world, am I imagining doing something, or being something / somewhere / in a state?

• Doing something: go, help, arrive, buy, call, usually without been

• Being something/somewhere (state): happy, ready, there, a doctor

When you do not use been

For ordinary events:

If I knew, I would help.

If I had known, I would have helped.

I would go.

I would have gone.

Nothing requires be, so there is no been.

In the condition:

If she had arrived …

If she had been here …

Event vs state. Both are interpreted as counter factual

Aspect and counterfactual interpretation

Counterfactual interpretation comes from remoteness + context, not from been:

Element	Main Function
would	remoteness/hypotheticality
have	Places the imagined situation before the reference time. Places the situation in the alternative past
been	builds a state, passive, or progressive construction. Tells us what kind of situation is imagined

• would answers: real or imagined?

• have answers: present/future or past?

• been answers: what sort of situation in that imagined world?

I would have gone (no been, event: go) | | I would have been there. | imagined state/location | | I would have been happy. | imagined state | | I would have been working. | imagined ongoing activity |

Nested alternatives

If I had taken the job, I would have moved to London, and I might have become a manager.

Says:

Actual world
└── Counterfactual world
    └── Possible branch:
        manager
    └── Possible branch:
        not manager

If I had known, I would have gone, and I might have met Sarah.

See also

• For full moods realization options see linguistic richness.